The Why
After two years of self-learning software development; building projects start to finish, posting them on LinkedIn and GitHub, attending a few hackathons, presenting in one, and networking at events; there was a certain void in me that needed to be fulfilled.
The portfolio-site-void.
I recently had a chat with TechNL's AbdulKabir Sulaiman and his feedback about my job hunt progress was: getting myself out there more and a personal website to stand out a little bit.
I too felt the need to make a website of my own where I could make myself look good, not bore the observer, and still put my point across. But that begs the question: what exactly is my “point”? Am I trying to stand out insanely enough to leave a good impression, or end up giving someone a bad taste?
I finally made up my mind to immediately start working on it.
Execution
So I started to mess around and find out. Which will be my new motto for this year since I do have to get out there more into the spotlight.
I looked up some decent portfolio examples. They felt a bit generic; same navbar, icons, layouts, very 2018 vibes. After hours of searching, I decided to one shot it (three shots in reality) with ChatGPT. And that worked out well… in a way.
I got a pretty decent layout from my prompts. Some cool animations, a consistent color palette, glows, and shadows. I felt over the moon after making it.
Walls Crumbling
I showed it to my friend Sameer Ahmed, a much more experienced and senior dev.
His response?
“It’s very 2020.”
“Make it simpler and cleaner.”
Then I got introduced to new templates, UI component libraries, and a few portfolio sites that were very clean and simply did the job. I consulted another friend, Ahmed Shaikh; another experienced and senior dev.
His response?
“Cool, but could be simpler and cleaner.”
Bargain
Internally, I wasn’t having it. It felt like hours of my work had been wasted. But I wasn’t going to settle with defeat. I gathered more feedback, more inspiration, and more examples.
It’s not a project. It’s merely a guide for what I can be.
Acceptance
With so many options, variations, and designs, things get confusing fast and indecision kicks in. I took the advice of my friends and stuck with something simpler and cleaner, with minimal effort put in. After all, the more time I spent on this, the less productive my time became.
Finally, after spending less time than before in search for inspiration, I decided to just fork Dillion's portfolio for my own peace of mind.
I was content with the outcome. Does having a portfolio same as Dillion’s make me lose points? No. Does it degrade my skill? No.
Instead, I get to use the saved time to be more productive building my next project. And in this day and age of AI, time is indeed precious. It adds to my ability of solving a problem in an efficient manner.
What I learned
- Use time wisely. It is your greatest asset.
- Consult, consult, and consult senior developers. Whether by email, in person, or on LinkedIn.
- Simpler and cleaner is almost always better.
- Be efficient in getting the job done.
Fin
That’s all for today, folks. It was fun writing this.
See you in the next blog. Peace ✌️